


Fate And Destiny

by TrishaCollins



Series: Knight Errant [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Aranea is about as friendly as a cactus sometimes, Ardyn speaks in riddles, Cor is so done with babysitting, Gen, Still not a prophat if you have to force everyone to do shit Bahamut, fate sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 22:43:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18291707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: Aranea is not happy that Ardyn is in the camp, Ardyn couldn't say a straight word to save his life.





	Fate And Destiny

“He helped make them!” Aranea snarled, nearly bristling. Spoon, next to her, was mostly expressionless. He had been watching the MT for any sign that he should be worried about this. “He’s as bad a Besithia!” 

“I understand that.” He answered, keeping his attention split between the girl – and she was a girl, even if she pretended to be grown. A reactive child who had somehow managed to shoulder more than any child should be asked to shoulder. “But right now we need to wait.”

She slammed her hand down with force on his desk. “Wait for what? For him to worm his wait into your ear too? He’s a waste of air and space! Kill him!”

“Can’t.” He leaned back in his chair. “Ardyn Izunia is immortal, Aranea. If we try, it will only turn him more against us.”

He had for once managed to surprise the girl, she clearly had no idea how to regain her footing after that. 

“Immortal? What? Are you mad, man?” She managed, after several moments. “Or are you jesting with me!” 

“I do not jest.” He sighed. “This matter has more thorns than a Cactur, Ara, but we must…I need your restraint. While I sort out what we should do. I will not risk the MTs or any of the smaller children, I have given you safety as promised, have I not?”

That seemed to pacify her somewhat. She settled down into her chair, crossing her arms under her breasts and shoving them up. The tactic worked on some men, but he was not some men, and by now it was only a game she played that he was aware of and refused to comment of. “We got our place out of service, just like the rest of you.” She muttered.

“And if he stays, he will grant the same service.” Perhaps not, he wasn’t entirely certain what Ardyn was capable of except ruin. But he was certain he could find something to keep the man busy. Even if only some small thing.

Counting bottle caps, perhaps? He hadn’t decided, the man still slept off his drunken toper and had barely stirred in the twelve hours since he’d shoved him into bed. 

Spoon tilted his head, clearly considering a question. If Aranea was all flash and reaction, Spoon was all thought. His trouble with speaking meant he took every word into consideration. “It is possible that Director Izunia may know how to repair us.” 

Aranea shot him a look. “You’re not broken, if you think he needs to fix your brain chip so you stop thinking again, Spoon, I’ll knock you right out.”

The lopsided smile that Spoon gave her was fond, an expression that might have been unsettling on his half mechanical face if he hadn’t seen it before. “We do not require extensive maintenance.” He rasped, patient, making a gesture to his throat.

Comprehension dawned, and the fiery half of the odd pair pressed against his human shoulder in clear apology. 

“The medics have looked.” He noted. “They could not find a cause.”

“Intentional malformation.” Spoon corrected gently. “Director Izunia was more aware of the process than I believe he wished others to know.”

Aranea had her chin on Spoon’s shoulder, above the port that his prosthetic was attached to. “So we give him a chance, and then if he doesn’t play along, we find an anchor and some heavy chain and we take him out into the ocean and sink him down to the Tidemother’s court and let her handle him?”

He snorted. “Lets focus on getting him to play along for now, and worry about what we’ll do if he won’t after. I just didn’t want you walking into my tent and reacting rashly.”

“Whose reacting rashly, Commander?” Aranea asked sweetly. “I’m not the one that invited a Daemon to sleep in my bed.”

He made a quick, dismissive gesture with his hand. “Out, the pair of you, or I’ll put you on seawall duty for a month until you both rust.” 

Aranea cackled, uncurling herself from Spoon in a way that made him think she didn’t have the joints that the rest of them did and led the MT out of the command tent. 

The girl was fire and fury, reaction and impulsive behavior. He’d hate her if she didn’t remind him so much of himself at her age. 

Which, he had managed to narrow down as somewhere between thirteen and fifteen, which made her habit of wearing low cut clothes to distract the men around her more unsettling. 

He didn’t fear for her, really, she had proven more than capable of looking after herself – and if anything really threatened her she had Spoon and an army that would die defending her against anything that dared hurt her. 

He just couldn’t afford to lose the men and the resources to her playing around. Brat of a kid that she was. 

The truth was, he had no idea what he was doing with Ardyn. The man was still mostly unconscious, whimpering or crying softly to himself from time to time, but otherwise a silent visitor in his space. There was occasionally an odd grey cast to his face, but it faded into proper skin before too long was left on it. 

Why had the man come here, if not to cause trouble? Why now, after two years of darkness? Was he here for Noctis or the Crystal? 

He didn’t have the answers for that, and wouldn’t until Ardyn was awake enough to give him any. If Ardyn would give him any. It was just as likely in his mind that he would return one day and find the Accursed missing from his bed and not hear from the man for two more years. 

He rubbed his face, bowing his head a bit. 

Fucking never stopped. There was always some new thing that demand his focus. Damn Regis, too, for putting him in this position. 

“I rather think I could slip chains.” Ardyn murmured thoughtfully behind him. “Were you to consider the girl’s suggestion? Though I recall such chains that could hold me did so for a very long time.” He looked a mess, hair falling forward into his face, eyes bloodshot and narrowed against the faint light, blanket gathered around his shoulders like Noctis and Prompto did when they had a nightmare. 

“In Angelguard, before you escaped?” He questioned, turning a bit to face the man but not bothering to get up just yet. 

“’Escape’ is such a word for it.” The man sank down into one of the chairs. “I traded one prison for another, in Angelguard at least they left me my dreams….” 

This was more melancholy than he pictured this conversation going. “Coffee? Tea?”

“Wine, if you have any.” Ardyn drew the blanket closer. “Besithia had searched for me.” 

“Why?”

A soft, tired laugh. “That I do not know. He thought I was his answer. Perhaps I was…He is dead now, Verstal. I almost miss him.”

“Mhm.” He cocked his head. “So why come here?”

Silence, head bobbing almost as though the man had drifted off again. “It is still my home, even if it betrayed me…even if I am a monster.” 

“Well, you’ve certainly acted like one.”

That got the Accursed looking at him, an odd half smile twisting his lips up. “I did, truly.”

“So, man or monster, which is it going to be?” He asked, voice flat.

The Accursed stretched out his legs, looking at his feet. “Do you really believe that anyone would allow me to be a man again?” 

He swept him over with his gaze, trying to decide how best to the respond to this creature. “I think that’s up to you, really. Continue as you are, you’ll be alone in the dark. Nothing and nobody will follow you out there. Come in, help out, and soon people will forget that you were ever anything else.” 

“You are a strange man, Mr. Leonis.” Ardyn said slowly, tilting his head back to stare up at the tent. “I think Besithia would have loathed you.”

“Having seen what he did, I pretty much loathed him as well. So it’s mutual.” He watched Ardyn, puzzling over his behavior.

“Do you belive in destiny, Mr. Leonis?” Ardyn asked.

He withheld a sigh, but only just. “No.”

That caused a blink, and another long look at him. “No?”

“No. I think every person decides their path. Regis certainly did, and his fate had been written down and painted for thousands of years. So destiny? Fate? You are what you make yourself, hiding behind anything else weakens you.” He said the words flatly, only letting the anger slip through at the last.

Another small, tired laugh. “Truly…”

“Whatever the gods decided for you, for Noctis….Regis just spat it back in their face. You can take that chance and make it your own, or you can be a puppet to their whims and do what the fuck they want you to. That’s a choice, not destiny.” He stood up, giving the man a rough nod. “I’ll fetch you breakfast.”

Ardyn tugged idly at the blanket around his shoulders, staring at him, gaze a bit unfocused and unsure, lip caught delicately between his teeth.

He left the tent, trying to focus his anger on something more practical in the darkness.


End file.
